Sunday, January 3, 2016

Laugh riot

(originally
published in The Outreach Connection
in November 2002)

Among my
intensive movie-watching schedule, there’s only one show I’ve designated as
appointment television – Curb your
Enthusiasm on TMN. The show is gradually getting more attention (it was up
for a best comedy show Emmy this year) although no one I’ve mentioned it to has
ever seen it. Larry David, co-creator of Seinfeld,
writes every episode, and stars in it as a stylized version of himself – a
multi-millionaire living in plush circumstances in L.A. hanging out with
celebrities, not doing anything in particular, but constantly battling
aggravation and embarrassment. It’s partly the result of his dyspeptic,
rough-edged personality, but also reflects an almost cosmic bad luck, as though
to punish him for getting rich from such lightweight achievement.

Curb your Enthusiasm

The show
has superb plotting – very much like Seinfeld
in how it sets several off-the-wall plot strands in motion and steers them
toward a generally wince-inducing collision. He hangs out a lot with people he
may or may not actually like (Richard Lewis seems like an actual friend despite
their fighting; it’s harder though to tell what he thinks of Ted Danson) – he
needs the interaction, but it pains him. But it’s a much more bitter show,
acknowledging no taboo subjects. One episode featured the making of a Martin
Scorsese movie, the death of Larry’s mother (which struck him mainly as an
excuse to get out of unwanted obligations), counterfeit money, and
grave-robbing. Week after week, the show further defines its own universe – one
that’s increasingly as complex and resonant as Seinfeld (which inspired at least one dictionary).

I love
how, again like Seinfeld, David positions
the show between reality and surrealism. The shows are broadly sequential, with
running plot lines, and yet Larry can only escape pariahdom because people (or
the Federal government for that matter), aren’t keeping score. In various
episodes, he’s been despised by everyone in L.A. for putting Shaquille O’Neal
out of action (Larry had a front row seat at a Lakers game and Shaq tripped
over his outstretched feet), he’s emptied out the city after spreading rumours
of a terrorist attack, he’s alienated the bosses of just about every TV
network, been stopped by the cops on numerous occasions, etc. But life goes on.

David was
apparently the inspiration for George Costanza on Seinfeld, and exhibits the same nebbish, self-centered view of the
world here. But David doesn’t have Jason Alexander’s cuddliness or occasional
plaintive quality. Anyway, it’s a TV show that’s as good as watching a movie –
and that’s the highest praise I can give. I am, as you can see, a fan.

Comedian

Julia-Louis
Dreyfus made several appearances on Curb
your Enthusiasm last season, for a recurring storyline about her and Larry
trying to set up a new comedy show (one by one, every network reacts positively
at first, then Larry blows the deal for some reason or other). Jason Alexander
appeared too. In the real world, they and Michael Richards all flopped in their
post-Seinfeld projects. As for the
big guy himself – well, Jerry Seinfeld always marched to a slightly different
drummer. He never took on a movie role. After the show ended, he didn’t do much
of anything for a while. Then you started reading about him working the comedy
clubs again. Famously, he retired all his old jokes. Sounded like he still
thought he had something to prove, but what?

It now
turns out that a camera was trailing Seinfeld throughout that period, and the
new film Comedian gives us a flavour
of what was going on. And the revelation is – there’s no revelation. Regardless
that he drives to his New York gigs in a Porsche and flies in a private jet to
his out of town jobs, he’s a true believer in the classic comedy ladder. That’s
the one where you sweat it out developing material and a sense of yourself,
slog around the country, work your way up the bill and then get your big break –
it used to be Carson, now it’s Leno or Letterman. Seinfeld already shot way
beyond that level and made his fortune, but it looks like he couldn’t imagine
any greater challenge than to do it all over again.

Of
course, he can’t really go back again – audiences now grant him a degree of
indulgence denied to any novice. But that’s not really his fault. Jerry
Seinfeld comes across as a decent, inherently modest guy. The movie contrasts
him with Orny Adams, a 29-year-old still searching for his big break. By
comparison, Adams seems arrogant and self-regarding – it’s clear that if he
ever makes it big, no room will be big enough to contain his ego. But then at
one point he shows us his room full of material – files of jokes, journals,
unproduced screenplays – and you realize how much he’s poured into this, how
his abrasiveness is insulation against rejection. At one point he talks with
Seinfeld, telling him about friends who’ve made money on Wall Street and how he
(Adams) needs to start getting somewhere. Seinfeld thinks he’s crazy – it’s not
about the money, he says, it’s because if you’re drawn to this life, then you
have no choice. But Jerry’s at a point where he can afford to ignore practicalities.

The King of Comedy

Comedian contains hundreds of jokes, but it isn’t
actually all that funny. While watching it, you’re too caught up in the process
of manufacturing comedy, with all its neuroses and pressures and traps. In this
regard the movie reminded me of Scorsese’s classic The King of Comedy, in which Robert de Niro is Rupert Pupkin, a
psychotic wannabe comedian who ultimately kidnaps his talk show idol, played by
Jerry Lewis. Scorsese talked in interviews about how he deliberately didn’t
include much of the Lewis character’s humour in the film, because it would have
invited the audience to judge whether or not he’s as funny as Pupkin thinks he
is. The point was purely that he’s an icon, that he’s made it. Comedian works in a similar way. You
forget that it’s in some sense about laughter and fun, because no one’s having
that much of either.

The
famous deathbed line is that dying is easy – it’s comedy that’s hard. Comedian amply supports that premise,
and yet you wonder why stand-up is quite so
hard. Jerry Seinfeld labours for over a year on putting together a 50-minute
act, but let’s face it – people write great novels, or direct entire movies, in
less time. Larry David writes thirteen mini-masterpieces a year. But I guess
there's no way you can feel the pain unless you share the affliction.

About Me

From 1997 to 2014 I wrote a weekly movie column for Toronto's Outreach Connection newspaper. The paper has now been discontinued and I've stopped writing new articles, but I continue to post my old ones here over time. I also aim to post a daily movie review on Twitter (torontomovieguy) and I occasionally tweet on other matters (philosopherjack).